Assisted Suicide

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I would argue that whatever side of the assisted dying debate we are on, it has been helpful to consider the basis for putting these guidelines on a statutory footing. As stated by my hon. Friends the Members for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) and for Winchester (Steve Brine), the guidelines are, in effect, pseudo-statutory—statutory, but subject to the view of the DPP, as his own guidelines have to be observed.

We have often discussed in recent months the importance of Parliament making laws and judges interpreting them as a matter of principle, and I agree with that principle. Hon. Members have touched on the issue of consistency. Suicide is not a crime and, generally speaking, it is not a crime to assist someone in an action that is legal.

There is a third issue on which I wish to focus, and it goes some way to picking up the gauntlet thrown down by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who is no longer in his place. There are very practical reasons of consistency and confidence why we should consider elevating these guidelines. It is a reasonable assumption, although the Government should test it, that there would be greater confidence in those guidelines as a result.

Currently, there are 400 suicides a year related to a chronic or terminal illness. That is 400 people committing suicide alone and in appalling situations. I wish to share with the House an extract from the diary of the husband of a lady who died of cancer of the womb on 2 January last year. He wrote:

“On New Years Day she persuaded me to take the dogs out for a walk and to visit friends to wish them Happy New Year. Whilst I was gone for perhaps an hour she took a large overdose in an attempt to end it all; due to the fact that she had been on strong painkillers and sleeping tablets for several months she was unsuccessful. She had previously signed a form saying that she did not wish to be revived in the event of requiring treatment, so they merely monitored her, however she did recover sufficiently to be allowed home on January 2nd. She seemed very weak and only wanted to sleep. However she was obviously not so weak as she seemed because when I took the dogs out that night she took advantage of my absence to tape herself into a plastic bag and end her life in that terrible way alone.

She should have been allowed to quietly slip away surrounded by her beloved dogs and in my arms but she felt that option was not available and while she lay dead upstairs I was subjected to various police questioning sessions which lasted until 6 o’clock the next morning. Even worse, she was subjected to a wholly unnecessary and barbaric post mortem and it was a fortnight before we could hold her funeral.”

I read that out not as an argument for assisted death, or to argue that the author should have been spared the ordeal of an investigation or his wife’s post-mortem, but to show the tragedy when someone feels that they do not have the confidence in guidelines that should be there to protect their loved ones, as well as themselves, to the extent that they do not even share their intentions.

Although I accept that the desire to end one’s own life can often be a rational one, I ask whether those 400 people a year would have still wished to attempt suicide in the way that they did, or at all, if they had felt able to talk more with their loved ones or a health care professional.

[Nadine Dorries]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I do not have time.

Whichever side of the debate we are on, we have to acknowledge the plight of those who choose to take their own life, and those they leave behind. I am content that the DPP’s sensible guidelines should be considered and put on a statutory basis as I believe such a move could reduce the instances of such suicides, and that is worth the Government considering.

What the Solicitor-General said about what might happen to future DPPs if they attempt to change those guidelines on a whim was very helpful. On a point of principle, we might legitimately ask whether this particular DPP has got it right. If we reach the point of asking that question, we have already conceded that some further action is required. I would say he has got it right, but other hon. Members may say he has not, but whatever Parliament decides, it is surely right that it should do so.